Catching Up

End of the summer and fall school preparations have kept me away from this site for too long. Here's a snap shot of the last week or so.

End of the summer and fall school preparations have kept me away from this site for too long. Here's a snap shot of the last week or so.

Beer in the Closet!

Jen and I have started our first batch of beer. It's a porter, and I predict a good amount of hoppiness. We boiled all the good stuff on our stovetop, though with some trouble keeping the boil going as strong as I wanted. It's all sitting in a five-gallon plastic tub in the living room closet, where the yeast are doing their primary fermentation magic.

Beer geek note

The starting specific gravity was only 1.030, where we should have expected more like 1.045. But we're beginners, and this should be tasty, if not that alcoholic in the end. (Higher SG at the start of fermentation is more sugar to convert to alcohol and carbon dioxide.) Potential culprits in this newbie brewing experience are too much boil down during the hopping (we had to add over 3 gallons of water in the end, rather than the 2.5 we expected, so perhaps we diluted too much), not enough mixing before taking the SG reading, or sloppiness in the reading itself, since I haven't used a hydrometer since high school chemistry.

Jen will probably say that I'm harping on the negatives too much here. I guess I'm being the analytical scientist brewer at the moment. This was a lot of fun, and we'll be doing it again and again, I think.

School update

Orientation for my program at UCLA is Thursday. I'm a little nervous, but not too much, as I've been on campus already for three months, and know some people and know my way around already.

My first research rotation in the Chemistry and Biochemistry department (proteomics, mass spectrometry, and data visualization) finished up yesterday. I have a tentative arrangement to work with a professor in the Human Genetics department in the fall. This will involve microarrays, another hot topic and excellent skillset to get my feet wet in. I'm happy to take advantage of the opportunity to try out different departments through this program, as Ph. D. students usually are locked into rotating in one department.

I'm spending the next two days chilling out before the crazy schedule begins, and reviewing calculus. I decided to start fulfilling pre-requisites in math and computer science that are missing from my previous attempt at academics, so I'm taking linear algebra in the Fall quarter (UCLA does 3 quarters a year instead of 2 semesters). Expect me to grumble about this schedule a few times, though, as this class is at 8am four days a week, to free up my afternoons for research seminars. Bleh. It's only for three months, but at least I'm motivated for this whole school thing!

Homebrewing 101

Jen and I attended a free homebrewing class last night at the local supply store. They continue to be a really fun and knowledgeable bunch. Jen and I have technically brewed before, but that was at a Brew-on-Premises establishment where you used their their snazzy equipment. The equipment is different, but aside from the opportunity to make a big horrible mess in our own kitchen instead, the process of actually brewing is very similar to the BOP experience. Brew grain like tea...boil with hops...strain into fermenting container...add yeast...bottle...drink!

The easiest way to handle carbonation at home is to do bottle conditioning, where you add a small amount of sugar to the final product right before bottling. The little yeasties wake up and produce a little more alcohol and carbon dioxide in the closed bottle over a few weeks. I do fret a little that this might mean a higher chance of more exploding bottles in my future.

Thanks go out to whichever laymakers made brewing beer at home legal in 1977!

"Are you extras?"

Jen and I went to our second show taping last night. It was essentially a free night of stand-up comedy, filmed as "National Lampoon Live" with the younger not-household-name type of entertainers. There were six comics, including John Diresta from FX's "Trash to Cash" strange redecorating show that I've seen once on TV, and the runner-up from "Last Comic Standing." I only vaguely remember a show by that name from earlier in the summer, but I wasn't watching much TV then, either.

Most of the audience appeared to be hired from an extras company. I never really thought about it before, but that tactic for filling a studio audience" is probably more common than most people realize. The show tapings were advertised around UCLA's campus, though, so we just showed up.

The humor was typically rauchy but good, and it's nice to see that it's acceptable to make fun of GW Bush again in pop culture. No idea when or where this will air on TV, though.